Sexism Study, Take Two—the Absurdity Continues
I wrote earlier about a new study that shows sexist men make more money than egalitarian males. Quite frankly, there are too many variables in this study to come to much of any reliable or notable conclusion, much less the one the authors came up with. As I noted earlier, many of the participants were children when the data were first being gathered. Of what relevance is a child's salary or income? Second, I have serious problems with the way in which the participants were sorted out as being traditional or nontraditional in their views of gender roles:
To reveal their gender role views, participants indicated how strongly they agreed or disagreed with statements such as: a woman's place is in the home; employment of wives leads to more juvenile delinquency; a man should be the achiever outside the home; and women are much happier if they stay home and take care of children.
The statement "employment of wives leads to more juvenile delinquency" is so outrageous, it might have prompted me to think the researchers were kidding by posing it. I could easily see myself smacking them back by "strongly agreeing" with the statement just to show them how ridiculous their questions were. If the authors' view of "traditional" Americans is that "women are much happier if they stay home and take care of children," they need to look up the difference between "traditional" and "atavist."
Allow me, dear reader, to step back for a moment and agree that the study's conclusions are correct: Egalitarian men face pay discrimination in the same way women, whether traditional or not, apparently face it. What if egalitarian men, like many of their egalitarian female counterparts, don't want the 80-hour weeks so they can fully participate in the rearing of their children? Heaven forefend: Could that explain the pay gap these authors claim to have found?
The Post story noted one sliver of hope in that regard. "Increasing numbers of Americans hold egalitarian views about the role of women in the workplace, and the researchers suggested that if attitudes about gender roles are indeed at the core of the long-standing wage gap, disparities in income might recede as egalitarian views become more prevalent," the story said.
Or lower-income men might take note of the study's findings and decide they'd better adopt "traditional" (to wit, caveman) attitudes if they want to earn a good living. Back to the future we go.
Tags: income | money | gender | gender bias | behavior | sexism
Tools: 
Share
|
| Comments (2) | Print
Reader Comments
Aggressive Male Income
My experience (I'm a retired engineer) is that the aggressive Type A male was the one more likely to be a workaholic, to put the job ahead of the family and to get promoted(hence higher pay). I also think that these same people pay a high price in their family life. It is probably only incidental that these same people are less egalitarian. Also, the increase in the number of women in the engineering and software fields late in my career definitely led to a more humane attitude on the part of management for both men and women.
You missed the obvious
Look, I know you're trying to make a point here, but the obvious reason for this 'disparity' is that a 'traditional viewpoint' male will work himself to death with longer hours, less attention to family and other sacrifices for the family for which he feels responsible.
It's not a 'caveman' point of view. It's a A-type, I'm doing this for my family (and let's not get into the nurturing side of this - some men equate a large paycheck with love and whether you think it's caveman or not, and regardless of how many men get progressive in their viewpoints. that's REALITY) even if it kills me (which it will) point of view. You're honestly deriding that?
A man works himself to death to be the breadwinner for his family and you sneer?
On the flip side, a progressive thinker will expect the woman to hold a job, thus won't have to work as hard, personally. and will have a lower individual income. He'll be more balanced in his life choices, but it won't be because he's a progressive thinker, but because he expects the woman to work equally hard at HER job while sharing responsibility for the child raising.
Knee-jerk reactionism is unbecoming and usually the domain of the conservative. But least we forget, extremism runs on both sides of the political/gender gap. Your sneering at men who work so hard, then usually end up in an early grave (do you REALLY want to discuss why men and women have such a large gap in life expectancies?) in order to provide for the family just because they think women should (not have to, but should) stay at home and take care of the kids he can't see because he's working so hard? It may be a 50's attitude, but there's nothing to sneer at there.
C'mon, use some sense.
advertisement
